Gorecki's Third Symphony, subtitled 'Symphony of Sorrowful Songs", caused a sensation in 1992 when it became a worldwide commercial and critical success, selling more than a million copies. Its "spiritual minimalism" struck a chord and put the Polish composer firmly on the map some 16 years after the work's composition. The words of the central movement are the opening to a prayer scratched on a cell wall by a Polish teenage girl while imprisoned during the Second World War.